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Global corporate investment grade issuance, excluding financials, has reached its highest year-to-date total on record as market conditions and investors' risk appetite have improved.

Global volume had risen to $304.5bn (€197bn) by May 7, an increase of 36% from the same period last year according to Dealogic, the investment bank research provider.

Wylie Collins, head of debt capital markets for the Americas at Merrill Lynch, said: “The value of term liquidity is greater than a year ago and the markets are going to understand and reward any issuer that takes an opportunity to enhance liquidity.”

On May 6, GlaxoSmithKline, the UK health care company sold a $9bn bond through JP Morgan, Citigroup and Lehman Brothers that was the largest corporate investment grade issue, minus financials, since a $9.4bn sale from car company Ford in 2001 according to Dealogic.

The GlaxoSmithKline issue is the eighth largest corporate investment grade issue, excluding financials, on record. It is ranked one place above the $8.5bn issue from GE Capital last month.

Collins said: “In the first half of the first quarter, we saw very strong interest from investors and that has turned into very strong demand. We expect this to continue for quite some time as issuers are mindful that markets are not always open.”

Separately in Canada, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Royal Bank of Canada led a $1bn issue for the Government of Québec, which was the issuer’s first US dollar-denominated bond since March 2006. It comes after the Government of Québec raised €1.25bn last week in the European bond market.

Eric Giroux, head of public sector and infrastructure in investment banking at Merrill Lynch in Canada, said: “In the past two weeks through two deals, Québec has raised the equivalent of six domestic issues.”